The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) is seeking partnership with Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) on issuance of travel documents to seafarers in the country.
The Comptroller General of Immigration, Mr Isah Jere, stated this during a working visit to NIMASA headquarters in Lagos yesterday. He said the partnership with NIMASA on issuance of travel documents to seafarers will ensure harmonisation for ease of control.
“Sections 2 and 9 of Immigration Act, 2015 confer the power to issue travel documents on the NIS. We think that it is important that as government agencies we need to deepen conversations on how to streamline our processes and procedures to ensure that we do not allow unnecessary duplication or overlap of functions.
“The Ease of Doing Business policy of government demands that agencies of government consistently endeavour to deploy streamlined and seamless processes and procedures for the comfort of the public across various windows,” he said.
According to him, the service saw enormous strengths in collaborations and synergy, adding that
NIMASA and NIS had a lot to gain if they deliberately deepened partnership and synergy in their operational activities.
He added that the services would make useful contributions to the maintenance of Blue Border security and national economic prosperity if they joined forces to address emerging challenges across the country’s coastal lines.
Responding, Dr Bashir Jamoh, DG, NIMASA noted that the agency could not have had easy movement of its own seafarers without the help of the NIS.
Jamoh added that the NIS was in the forefront of identification of nationalities, with regards to tribe, to ensure who belonged to Nigeria and other countries. He cited an example of the Danish citizens that were arrested at sea and how the NIS was able to identify them.
“The Danish Embassy called and said that they didn’t have travel documents of these suspected criminals, how their nationality will be identified because they were arrested outside Nigerian territorial waters but very close to her borders.
“The only thing we could do was through the NIS who are the experts trained for this. This shows the interface and collaboration between the agency and the service, which was more paramount,” he said.
